Tag: nutrition

A few weeks ago a study was picked up by the press concluding that processed meat causes cancer. I am a vegetarian, and I can tell you that in moderation, processed meat is fine, even with all of its nitrates and preservatives.

The headline from CNN was “World Health Organization links processed meats to cancer- and vegetarians get smug on twitter”.

A friend of mine and I were just discussing this subject. This friend owns a very successful restaurant here in Pittsburgh that serves specialty meats and cured meats and seafood. He serves some of the finest cured meats in the country.Continue reading Is Meat Bad For You?

Everyone has muscles. Every second that you breathe, you use your muscles.

Anything that moves in your body is moved by muscles. When you breathe, your diaphragm and intercostal muscles relax to allow extra space in your torso for the air that fills your lungs. These same muscles contract to push the air out of your lungs.

You don’t have to think about moving these muscles because they are controlled by your autonomic nervous system. This is the opposite of the muscles that you control.

These are just some of the muscles that you use without thinking about them. The gluteal muscles in your hips and pelvis are contracting and relaxing constantly to keep you sitting and walking upright.

It is easy to scare people with the unknown. Even if you have training in exercise or nutrition they can be confusing, intimidating, and create a sense of the unknown.

To complicate matters, there are many charletans and snake oil salesmen who create misinformation to sell people their usually worthless, products.

I warn my patients that if it sounds too good to be true then it usually is. “If you avoid this one evil ingredient or spice or food particle, then you will get rid of all of your health ills and live a long, active life.” That’s generally the gist of their sales pitch. Continue reading Exercise, Nutrition and Fear Mongering

These are the recent headlines from contestants on the popular weight loss show “Biggest Looser”.

Millions of viewers tune in each week to monitor the progress between contestants to see who lost the most amount of weight. Millions of people have become inspired by the contestants overcoming insurmountable obstacles to loose weight, and feel and look better. Continue reading “We’re All Fat Again”

Happy New Years from all of us at Pain Free Lifestyle. It is 2015 and a great time to embark on a new exercise and eating regime.

We all just made it through, as one of may patients called it, the “season of eating”.

Most people will put 2 to 4 pounds or so throughout the holidays. One common statistic that was being thrown around was that the average american consumes 3500 to 4000 calories on Thanksgiving. That is almost double the amount of calories that we should consume in one day.

That is why most of us, if we are not exercising and watching what we eat, will come through the holidays a few pounds heavier. If you don’t do anything to lose that weight, then those extra pounds will stick around and will accumulate throughout the year.

That extra weight will stick around and will accumulate, if you don’t exercise and eat healthy, most of the time.

Exercise and healthy eating doesn’t have to be an all or nothing thing. Someone is not either healthy or unhealthy. No one is perfect. And for most of us, the compromises to our lifestyle that we’d have to make to become ripped and lean with 6 pack abs is way too much. These compromises are way to restrictive (not being able to go out to a restaurant and enjoy a meal with friends) and for the most part, are unhealthy.

From my experience, from I see in my practice everyday, is that most normal people cannot withstand a rigorous exercise routine like crossfit or p90x.

Unfortunately, many people look at themselves as failures if they cannot perform an intense exercise routine like that.

Well I am here to tell you that for most normal people, an intense exercise routine will only cause injury. If you are going to hard with exercise, then you will end up injuring yourself before you have a chance to get into shape.

From what I see in my practice every day, most people who work a regular job, or who take care of kids, or who want to play golf or garden on the weekend, don’t need a crazy intense exercise routine. Most people just need to move.

That is why I created Pain Free Lifestyle. It is an exercise and nutrition program that is designed to be easy on your body, and easy to follow and even easier to incorporate into your lifestyle.

But it has to be a lifestyle change, it is not a temporary diet or temporary exercise routine. Studies show that you will only benefit from exercise if you are consistently doing it.

The main health benefits from eating right and exercise don’t come on after 1 or 2 days. They come on after a month or 2 of consistent exercising and healthy eating. But you have to do it sustainably, and be easy on your body, otherwise you won’t be able to stick with the program long enough to get any benefit from it.

Pain Free Lifestyle was designed to be able to be performed for the rest of your life. You find a level that works for you, and stick with it.

If you are already in pain, then exercise shouldn’t make it worse. There are some conditions, such as osteo-arthritis, that will get temporarily irritated from exercise and from movement, but every study out there says that the arthritis will get worse the less you move, and that exercise will help to slow down the progression of the arthritis.

If you do the right, easy on your body exercises and stretches, then you can stabilize your irritated and painful joints and get more life out of them.

But if you go to hard, then you will break down those already degenerating and arthritic joints, and make things worse.

I am chiropractor who has a master’s degree in Nutrition and specializes in muscle injuries and trigger point therapy. I know which muscles get overused and injured easily. I know which muscles to loosen up and which muscles to strengthen up to stabilize your body and prevent more pain and more injury.

If you are overweight, obese, in pain, haven’t exercised in years, are out of shape, don’t want exercise and healthy eating to rule your life, or just looking for an alternative to the extreme exercise systems that push you way too hard, then Pain Free Lifestyle is for you.

The evidence is mounting and is quite compelling. More and more studies are pointing towards plant based diets as a better way to get all of your vitamins, minerals and nutrients.

T.Colin Campbell is a professor emeritus in nutritional biochemistry from Cornell University. He has performed studies and has written books that prove that most cancers and preventable diseases are caused by animal foods and diary. Continue reading Are Plant Based Diets Superior?

Winter is fast approaching, and just like we need to get our furnaces ready to handle the impending cold, we need to get ourselves ready for the demands that the cold weather puts on our bodies.

If we don’t service and maintain our furnaces before winter, we chance it breaking down when it is cold and working hard. We also need to get it serviced periodically, and maintain it, to make sure that it is running optimally and not wasting energy.

Our bodies are the same. If we don’t maintain our bodies and keep ourselves in some semblance of shape, then we chance our bodies breaking down when we are stressed and working hard. Our bodies can break down when the sudden demands of cold weather stress us, such as: shoveling snow, slipping on the ice, pushing a car out of a ditch, walking in the snow, just staying warm (it takes energy for our body to keep itself warm). Continue reading Get Ready For Winter With Exercise

This is according to a new book by Erin Marie Daily titled “Generation Rx: A story of Dope, Death, and America’s Opiate Crisis”.

Opiates are a class of pharmaceutical drugs that are derived from the poppy plant. It is the same plant that heroin and morphine are made from. They are also called narcotics, pain killers, pain meds, etc.